Fire and Rain
by kek123452003
Summary: 7th installment of the Love series


Title: Fire and Rain  
Author: Kelley  
Rating: R, for naughty words not meant for children  
Category: A/U, angst, romance, more angst, drama, and in case you  
didn't get it before, angst  
Feedback: I appreciate it greatly because I know most of us don't  
have the time to give it  
Notes: This is a continuation of my long dormant "Love" series. Life  
and all of the pits and perks of it kept me from continuing it. I've  
actually had the entire plot of this story in my head for about a  
year and a half but just never sat down to get it to you all. I know  
we've been spoiled by some stellar writing from the Season 8 people  
and other amazing authors lately but I will not be able to post every  
few days. I'll try to get the story out every few weeks. Also, this  
chapter is unbetaed so please ignore violations of spelling and  
grammer. Anyone who wants the job, drop me a line Finally, I hope  
you all enjoy this as much as I enjoy writing it.

**TICK-TOCK**

**TICK-TOCK**

**TICK-TOCK**

'This isn't fair,' Josh thought to himself dejectedly. 'It's just not right, not right at all.' You put so much of yourself into creating something, building it, and fortifying it. You pour your heart and soul into it; joyfully sacrifice a part of yourself for it, and in the end all control over it is taken away from you. God, Fate, whatever the hell is in charge up there asserts itself and you're just left behind. Left behind to sit in a chair like nothing you did up to this point mattered at all. You took a vow to love and protect someone for the rest of your lives? Oh well, doesn't matter. You create these amazing children that you idolize and watch with awe as they form themselves into people faster than you can imagine? Oh well, doesn't matter. You serve your country with so much of yourself that you can lose sight of what it is you're serving for? Oh well, that really doesn't matter anymore.

**TICK-TOCK**

**TICK-TOCK**

**TICK-TOCK**

He sat hunched forward, head practically between his knees as he concentrated on his breathing and not on what was going on down the hall. 'Don't you dare cry,' he vehemently ordered himself. 'Don't you dare fucking lose it right, you miserable bastard.'

"Please God, just let someone tell me something," Josh moaned pathetically, swallowing mightily to regain control of himself or at the very least, his body's physical reaction to the events of the past two hours. Well, really the events of the last year.

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans; Cherish the ones you love; You don't know what you've got till its gone. To him, just a bunch of fortune cookie insights that Josh never really bought into until they had become his life and he was left scrambling to make sense of it all. How what he had worked so hard to build had fallen apart so rapidly with such a devastating impact on those he loved the most. How no matter how hard he tried to repair the damages something always impeded his progress toward rectification. How his actions, and his selfish actions alone, had led him to be sitting so helplessly in this cold, unfeeling waiting room with nothing left to do but wait for someone to come and tell him that he either had hope or nothing.

**TICK-TOCK**

**TICK-TOCK**

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No one knew better than Josh himself that he had not been placed on this Earth to be some sort of physical superhero; hell he felt lucky at the end of the day to be able to climb the stairs to his bedroom. Articulate, charming, and cunning to a degree unparalleled by many of his generation Josh had never felt his lack of physical prowess had made him any less of a man. But just sitting and doing nothing but resisting the urge to curl into a fetal position for what has been the most eternal two hours of Josh's life had left him feeling like he should just go ahead and castrate himself. This wasn't what a man did when the most precious things in the world to him were fighting for their lives. A man wouldn't trust anyone else but the absolute best in the world to make sure the job got done right. A man would haul ass down the hallway into those operating rooms and tear out every organ and limb from every person he could reach before treating himself the same way to save what he loved the most. Most importantly, a man would have made sure they never would have even had to set foot inside an operating room unless one of them wanted a medical degree. A man would do anything, ANYTHING, but just sit there and wait for it all to be over with, only able to hope and pray for the best possible outcome. The only conclusion that he could come up with was that he just wasn't a man.

With excruciating tension nestled inside of him, Josh got up shakily and started to pace around the deserted room. Friends and family had been in here with him at some point, he was pretty sure, but he had dismissed them sometime ago. None of them were responsible for this, only him. It should be him that had to bear the burden of waiting in this room, not them. Stopping by a window to clear his blurry eyes, he noticed for the first time that day that it was still raining outside. Rain is supposed to cleanse the body and the mind, was h away all of the doubts and anxieties that one held. 'I could be standing in the middle of a typhoon with nothing but my skin to save me and I'd still be as lost as I am now,' he thought idly, leaning heavily against the frame. And that's when he saw it.

Just barely, just out of the very corner of his eye, he could see it. That one little ray of sunlight inching its way out of the dark clouds, struggling to be seen. It didn't make things right at all; it didn't make a doctor or nurse come in and tell him they were fine; and it certainly didn't do a damn thing to assuage his guilt and sorrow. But it was light in the middle of darkness nonetheless and Josh knew it was better than nothing at all, especially the way things were looking right now.

"Please let them be okay," he whispered, tears steadily but quietly falling down his cheeks. "I'll do anything you want me to; leave Congress, leave the country, leave them forever. You can even finish what you started with the fire and with Rosslyn, if that's what it'll take. If it'll save my wife and my child, you can have me. Just please let them live. Please let them live, please let them live, please let them live…" He kept mumbling that phrase as he sunk down to the ground, rocking back and forth as he continued to mutely sob.

**TICK-TOCK**

**TBC...**


End file.
